


And hey, you, don't you think it's kind of cute

by Sylvalum



Series: livin' is easy [4]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: A Spray-Painted Van, Allergies, Anaphylaxis, F/F, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21631291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvalum/pseuds/Sylvalum
Summary: Zeke saves the day, Nia is reluctantly impressed, it's snowing in Torna, and Pandoria drives a bright purple van.
Relationships: Hikari | Mythra/Nia, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: livin' is easy [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1422580
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	And hey, you, don't you think it's kind of cute

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not allergic myself, but i did research before writing this  
title from the song 'arms tonite' by mother mother

After the third time they run into Rex’s annoying weirdo cousin Zeke while hanging out at the _ Best of Torna _ restaurant, Mythra starts getting suspicious.

Vacation season’s long since over, and all the roads out here are already turning into a miserably muddy soup. If it’s not raining then it’s windy as shit, and the trees never even had the time to turn orange before all the leaves blew right off in the storm, and just last week it was hailing. _ Nobody _ comes out here for pleasure’s sake at this time of the year, as Mythra knows with dead certainty. 

So then why the hell does Zeke continue to show up in the neighbourhood?

“What would he even _ do _ out here?” Mythra vents at Nia and the others, staring at Zeke where the man sits at the counter, ordering food from Akhos with a slightly manic grin. He’s wearing about eleven belts and a pair of gigantic wellington boots. 

“Maybe his grandpa needs his help with something,” Nia suggests mindlessly, all her focus on her creamy caramel pumpkin spice latte. Mythra already sullenly regrets finishing her own drink so soon. Nia adds, “Like, what if Old Man Addam’s building a shed or something? Maybe he’s just coming here because of that.”

“Um,” says Rex, who’s sitting next to Pyra and wearing two of her knitted scarves. “I think Grandpa Addam actually mentioned something about Cousin Zeke thinking about… maybe also moving out here…”

“What?” Mythra turns her stare to Rex instead. “No. What? _ Why?” _

“It’s a nice area,” Rex says, and almost visibly starts sweating beneath Mythra’s stare. “Uh. And grandpa owns a lot of land around here, so - so it’s a good place to build a house! Because Zeke’s his grandson, so he’d inherit some of his land here sooner or later anyway…”

“He wants to build a house? Out _ here?” _ Mythra demands. She _ cannot _grasp Zeke’s logic.

“For real?” Nia asks, putting down her drink. “He’s gonna be _ living _ here?”

“Well, I think so, at least.” Rex glances at Pyra, and then they both blush a little, so Mythra assumes they just started holding hands underneath the table. “I mean.” Rex looks at Pyra. “The countryside is just so beautiful…”

“Yeah,” Pyra adds, only a little dreamily, looking into Rex’s eyes, and Mythra and Nia share a flat look.

Mythra would’ve continued to gossip about Zeke von Genbu, further condemning his life choices to Nia, Pyra and Rex, but just then Patroka - Nia’s favourite co-worker from her intern days, as Mythra knows - shows up with the pastries they’d ordered, slamming it down on the table in her usual manner and simultaneously destroying the conversation. In the ensuing silence, Patroka says, “Enjoy,” and then she promptly leaves.

“Wow, thanks,” Mythra mutters, and grabs her muffin from the tray. And then she narrows her eyes as Zeke shifts at the counter, saying something to Akhos. 

He’s alone. Doing nothing special. He’s got a bag with him, but that’s about it. Not like last time, when he was carrying around a stupidly big cardboard box, which looked shifty as hell, even though Zeke tried to play it off like a casual everyday thing to bring into a restaurant. Today he’s just... ordering food. Like a normal person.

Mythra decides to just leave him alone, takes a bite out of her citrusy muffin, and feels at peace.

Then Nia starts choking.

“Nia? Nia!” Mythra scrambles to stand up then freezes there, too afraid to touch Nia because she doesn’t know what she ought to do to help and fuck is she aimless, she’s useless, what should she do? What can she do? _ “Nia!” _

“Help!” Pyra cries. “My friend is hurt!”

Mythra can feel herself start to panic, start to seriously lose her goddamn _ mind, _ but just then, Zeke von Genbu fucking leaps toward them, holding a-

“Epipen!” he exclaims, and then Pyra and Zeke calmly maneuver Nia over into a better position and Zeke stabs her with the epipen, and whatever horrible dread that was paralysing Mythra before slowly starts to disappear as Nia starts to breathe a little easier, and Mythra remembers that she’s got her phone in the pocket. Emergency number - she needs to call an ambulance, she needs to-

Mythra takes out her phone.

* * *

Zeke rides with them to the hospital, which is located an endless 40 minute ride away. The ambulance workers don't seem too alarmed after giving Nia something, but despite that Nia keeps sniffing and clearing her throat and Mythra holds her hand as tight as she dares, heart in her throat the whole ride, and tries desperately not to think about Milton. Pyra sits next to Mythra with one tentative arm around her shoulders, and she keeps rubbing Mythra’s back like _ Mythra _is the one who’s in danger here.

But Mythra can’t make herself tell Pyra to cut it out, so she just quietly toughs it out the whole way to the hospital.

When they arrive there, Nia quickly gets wheeled away to be examined, while the rest of them are shooed from room to room until they get to the reception area. There they wait about fifteen minutes more, though somehow it feels more like _ two hours, _ all while an incredibly shitty talk show drones on and on from a TV above the receptionist’s desk. 

“She’ll be alright,” Pyra tells her at one point.

“She better,” Mythra tries to growl, and checks the clock for the 37th time.

“Your sister’s right,” Zeke von Genbu then pipes up, from where he’d been sitting and quietly talking with Rex. “If Nia wasn’t dying in the ambulance, which she wasn't, then she’ll be _ just _fine when she’s done here!”

“And how do you know that?” Mythra snaps.

“I’m a kindergarten teacher, chum. I’ve witnessed medical emergencies you cannot even begin to fathom.”

“You see?” Pyra says, smiling so her dimples show, taking the opportunity to chime in. “Nia will be right as rain! Not much longer now until she’s back, I’m sure.”

Mythra opens her mouth to rebuke that, but at the sound of a door opening she turns around to look so fast she can hear the bones in her neck pop. She doesn't care. There in the doorway, lit from behind by the sickly glare of hospital LED lights, stands Nia, holding a little plastic bag with the hospital logo on it. Her eyes are a bit red-rimmed but other than that she really_ is _ fine, and she smiles a little at Mythra as she comes up to her and hugs her.

It’s a very short and dignified hug, because Mythra essentially has the entire family here witnessing her teary-eyed reunion, but they can catch up on all that sappy shit she really wants to do in private, later. For now this is okay.

“Hey,” Nia says, in a slightly croaky voice. “I can’t fucking believe there were nuts in that lemon cupcake.”

“I’m going to kill Malos,” Mythra vows. “I’ll make it look like an accident, I’m sure there’s a way.”

“I think the pastries are Akhos’s, actually,” Nia says, taking Mythra’s hand.

“Then I’ll murder Akhos instead,” Mythra replies, but she’s kind of losing the anger required to keep the joke going in the face of Nia’s bright eyes and smirk. Nia’s okay. Nia’s _ alright. _

Pyra, Rex and Zeke then all come forward to ask how Nia’s feeling, and Pyra hugs Nia really briefly, while Nia turns to Zeke and says, “Thanks. I mean, I still think you’re a weirdo, but thanks for saving my life, blah blah.”

“No problem,” Zeke says. Then he turns to Rex and says, suddenly sounding intense, “Hey kiddo, do you have any way of getting back to Aletta?”

Oh, shit.

They don’t.

“Uh,” Rex says, and scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, I guess I could call gramps so we could ride with him…”

_ “Gramps?” _ Zeke echoes, sounding offended. “Why don’t you all ride with me instead? If that’s okay with you, ladies?”

Pyra immediately assures Zeke that she’d be more than happy if he drove her and Rex back to Aletta, while Mythra shares a look with Nia. It’s not that she’d protest against a free ride back, especially since they don’t even _ have _ any other way of getting back home, but still-

“You rode here with us in the ambulance,” Nia reminds Zeke flatly. “You don’t have a car, either.”

“Aha!” Zeke exclaims, and holds up his phone triumphantly. “That’s where you’re wrong! I’ve called my princess to come pick me up, and she’s on the way here right now.”

“Ah,” Mythra says.

They gather up their coats and make their way outside to the hospital parking lot, where the sky’s darkened and it’s - snowing. The muddy depressing ground is quickly getting covered up by snow, beautiful white and glittering, the first snowfall of the year, and for a second the urge to cram her hands into the snow and _ make _ something is almost too strong to resist. 

-Though then a violently purple and yellow van screeches into the parking lot, and some of that magical feeling evaporates.

The van is, on closer inspection, actually spray-painted in a whole palette of garish colours with a sedate grey probably being the poor van’s original colour. On its side the words _ “The Lightning Bolt 3000!!!” _ are written in eye-searing orange, on top of an otherwise pretty realistically painted thundercloud, and the clutter is _ almost _ artsy enough to get the car a place in a modern art museum.

Mythra glances at Nia, who actually _ likes _ pop-art, trying to gauge her reaction, but Nia’s expression is completely unreadable.

As the van comes to a stop, Zeke rushes up to the driver’s door just as it opens and catches his girlfriend as she jumps out. She’s tiny, green-haired and much cuter than Zeke.

“You fucking idiot,” she tells Zeke as he lets go off her. “Why were you so _ vague in your text! _ I thought _ you _ were grievously injured, you bastard!”

“Pandoria,” Zeke says gently, and Pandoria sniffs once.

Then she turns to Mythra and the other teenagers clustered together in a sad little flock outside the hospital, and says brightly, “What’s up, kids? Heard you needed a ride, so c’mon in then…”

Turns out the inside of the van has been redecorated too. There’s the driver’s and passenger’s seat in front, that are mostly untouched apart from the giant lump of toys and plushies hanging from the windshield mirror. The back of the van, however, has two plush sofas and a little coffee table shoved in between them and bolted to the floor, and there’s posters nailed to the walls and what looks like a mini fridge shoved in a corner, along with a bunch of boxes and two surfboards.

“Wow,” Nia croaks. “I could live in this van.”

“We did, actually,” Zeke says brightly. “For about a year when we were traveling around the world together after running away from home.”

Now it’s Mythra who says, “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Pandoria says, and beams a little. “This van is our baby. It’s broken down so many times…”

“And every time we’ve repaired and upgraded it,” Zeke finishes, only a little misty-eyed.

“Okay,” Pyra says. She bites her lip. “But there are no seatbelts in the back…”

“Bah,” Zeke says, waving the complaint off with a flap of his hand. “We’ll go slow over the potholes then, no biggie. Let’s hit the road!”

Pandoria and Zeke get out of the van and closes the doors, then go around to sit in the front. Pandoria takes the driver’s seat, while Zeke picks something called ‘Turters’ up from a box on the dashboard and starts cooing at it. Meanwhile, Rex and Pyra take one of the sofas in the back while Mythra and Nia take the other one.

Annoyingly, the sofa_ is _ very comfortable.

Nia puts her head on Mythra’s shoulder after sitting down, and Mythra discreetly snakes an arm around her waist to pull her closer. When Mythra then adoringly looks down at Nia however, Nia’s just staring at one of the posters on the wall instead of caring about Mythra. When Mythra glances at the poster, it’s one of those Pokémon thingies.

“I love this van,” Nia mumbles happily, and falls asleep on Mythra.

Mythra tries very hard to be annoyed about that, but it’s so fucking difficult to be anything other than helplessly fond in that moment.

-then the van actually _ starts, _ backing up and immediately hitting two potholes, and Mythra begins to curse under her breath and pulls Nia closer to her, so that Nia won’t fall and hit her precious head on Zeke von Genbu’s ridiculous coffee table as they ride back to Aletta through the snowy winter wonderland.

**Author's Note:**

> part 5 of this series coming at Some Point for sure  
-anyway if you liked this feel free to comment


End file.
